


A Good Season

by TheKnittingJedi



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: AU where everyone is human and happy, Alternate Universe - The Great British Bake Off Fusion, Demisexual Gerard Keay, Gerry has anger issues, He/Him Pronouns for Michael Shelley, M/M, Men in Eyeliner, author knows very little about the gbbo but she tried, background jonmartin, gerry and gertrude equals noel and sandi you can't change my mind, i wrote this for me and a friend but you can read it too, interesting fashion choices all around, mandatory smoking scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:42:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnittingJedi/pseuds/TheKnittingJedi
Summary: The host of the most popular cooking show in the UK falls for the new producer while playing matchmaker for the two contestants who would make such a lovely couple. What could go wrong?An AU inspired by the absolutely brilliant TMA/GBBO shenanigans on Tumblr.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael Shelley
Comments: 22
Kudos: 120





	A Good Season

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pinehutch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinehutch/gifts).



> This whole alternate universe wouldn't exist without rendherring's [Tumblr post](https://rendherring.tumblr.com/post/622472023165255680/fuck-it-great-british-bake-off-au-with-jon-and) that launched a thousand Great British Bake Off asks and headcanons. I don't know much about baking but I love everything that goes on behind the scenes, so I'm sorry if you're here for the cooking, have a host/producer fic instead.
> 
> This fic specifically exists only thanks to pinehutch's galaxy-brained prompt "what if Noel and Sandi but make it Gerry and Gertrude, with background Jonmartin, also Michael's there" (I'm paraphrasing) which I took and ran away with. There's no one else I'd rather have fallen in this rabbit hole with.
> 
> Last but not least, my eternal gratitude to saretton, a true gem who keeps reading everything I write and has the best insights.

The first time they meet, Gerry finds himself staring at the tall, thin man with blonde ringlets and a patterned suit that hurts the eyes.

And here he thought he would be the most outlandishly dressed person at the party.

“Who’s that?” he whispers in Gertrude’s ear. He has to bend down considerably to do so.

His co-host takes a sip from her flute, absent-mindedly extending her little finger. Pre-show parties — parties in general, to be fair — are not her thing, but she’s mastered the art of sulking graciously.

Gerry has tried to mimic her, but it seems that a tasteful amount of booze is essential and, well. Young Gerry might have jumped at the chance, but Mid-Forties Gerry has, hopefully, learned from his mistakes.

Gertrude follows the direction of his gaze. “Who, Michael? You wouldn't like him.”

She is all innocence and breezy nonchalance and Gerry isn’t fooled for a second. “Nobody said anything about ‘like’. I just asked who he was.”

“And I answered.” Gertrude tries to hide her smirk behind another sip of champagne, but her amusement bleeds into her voice.

Gerry fidgets with his hair, brushing it out of his face out of habit before remembering he’s had a haircut yesterday. Production always insists he looks “presentable” (their words) before filming, but not too much: after all, they’ve hired him to be the weird-looking but approachable counterpart to Gertrude’s matronly, dry persona. He refuses to cover his tattoos, but he’s secretly glad to have left the bad dye jobs in the kitchen sink behind him once and for all. “But you know him,” he insists, still pointlessly fixing his hair. It’s not worth it to lose the habit: give it a couple of weeks and it’ll swoop right across his forehead again.

“Maybe.”

He’s not looking at her, too busy squinting at the man — Michael, apparently — while he talks and laughs with a gaggle of producers. There’s something about him that catches the eye, and not entirely in a pleasant way. An intensity, like he’s going to give you a headache if you look at him for too long, and if that’s the case Gerry’s about to find out, because he just can’t tear his eyes away.

It takes another minute for it to click, and he pats Gertrude on an arm. “Oh! Wait, he’s Michael _Shelley?_ What’s he doing here?”

He has history with Michael Shelley, which is something of an odd statement, since they've never met. Not until now, that is. His name keeps popping up around him, their acquaintance circles overlapping almost completely except for the two of them. He knows that Gertrude, for example, directed him when she still worked in theatre. But what’s a young actor (well, relatively young. Younger than Gerry, that’s for sure) doing here?

Gerry is suddenly running a cold sweat. Are they going to replace him? Is it the way they’re going to tell him he’s fired? At a party, between a glass of prosecco and a canape, as an afterthought?

Gertrude interrupts his spiraling with a loud laugh, something Gerry’s usually proud of achieving, but not when she’s openly mocking him. “Are you still ignoring their emails? He’s our new producer. Get used to him.”

Gerry knows he shouldn’t have favourites, but each season there’s a contestant that will eventually make him break this unspoken rule. Usually it’s the underdog, the cheerful young upstart with a bad family situation, the sweet grandma with a hidden tragic background.

This season, there are two.

The towering, soft-spoken poet from Manchester who babbles when he’s embarrassed — which is to say constantly — wins a special place in Gerry’s heart since the first time they meet. Martin Blackwood almost trips on his own feet when someone calls him and Gerry vows to keep an eye on him, possibly making sure there’s always a fire extinguisher close to Martin’s baking station. Better safe etcetera etcetera.

On the other hand, he wouldn’t have given the surly, prematurely-greying English professor a second thought except for poking fun at him. There’s not much Gerry enjoys more than poking a big head until it deflates. But then he notices Jon Sims, scowl and all, quietly helping everyone set up their own station, giving advice, commiserating on all the paperwork. Most of all, Gerry notices how he keeps looking to the other side of the tent, where Gerry’s first protegé — who, let’s be honest, is as gay as they come — is trying to understand how the oven works, and a picture starts coming together in Gerry’s mind.

He takes a quick look at his watch and then runs behind the cameras, where he’s sure he can find someone from the production team. And he does, in the form of Michael Shelley.

Today, the new producer is wearing pink jeans and a jacket that looks like it’s made out of tinfoil, which Gerry concedes is ironically appropriate. They couldn’t look more like opposite ends of the fashion spectrum if they tried: even though he stopped wearing the full Goth paraphernalia a decade ago or so, Gerry still has black clothes, black hair and black eyeliner when he’s presenting the show.

He overcomes his misgivings pretty quickly: he’s on a mission. “Hey, um, hi. I don’t think we’ve met. Gerard. Gerard Keay?”

With a slow and deliberate movement, Michael Shelley looks up from the clipboard he was contemplating — he didn’t look like he was _reading_ it, it was more like… an act of deliberate posing, a live art performance — and fixes his eyes on Gerry, saying nothing.

The eyes that are focusing on him are wide and unblinking and Gerry finds himself looking for a word to describe their colour. Colours? Is “stunning” a colour? Never mind. Michael’s eyelashes are a pale blond and Gerry could be mistaken, the lightning backstage being what it is, but he could swear they’re highlighted by a thin line of baby blue eyeliner.

Then Michael blinks, and just like that, time restarts with a jolt. “I-I-I was wondering if it’s too late to make a placement change?” Gerry cringes at the way he’s stumbled across this sentence, but at least he’s asked what he wanted to ask.

When Michael cocks his head, blond ringlets tumble off one of his shoulders, and Gerry idly wonders which demon agreed to make a pact with him so that his hair could defy the laws of gravity like that. “Persuade me.”

His voice is high-pitched, strangely but not unpleasantly youthful, and accent-less. Gerry knows it’s all made up. Michael is an actor-turned-producer, and Gerry knows how actors are, having been one himself. You can take the thespian out of the stage…

Gerry also doesn’t like playing games. He knows (well, knew) plenty of manipulative people and he vowed to never become like them. Luckily, in this instance, what he wants and what he thinks would sway Michael are one and the same. “I think it would be fun.”

Being sober is hard, sometimes, but the validation Gerry feels watching Martin and Jon’s budding, fumbling, awkward romance develop is better than anything he’s ever indulged in in his youth.

He watches them from afar like a dark fairy godmother, and he catches Michael also watching them. He does so studiously, and Gerry doesn’t like the calculating look in his eyes.

For some reason, Michael is always backstage and has taken to wandering on set when they’re not filming, chatting with the crew and the contestants. He’s very sociable and never inappropriate, but he often leaves behind him a trail of puzzled unease. It’s his laugh, Gerry thinks. And also the fact that the pans and the baking trays never seem to fit again in the cupboards once Michael walks away, or that kitchen appliances suffer from strange malfunctions if he ever touches them.

Some contestants _love_ him. Jude, who does interesting things with her flambe lighter, always ends up in fits of giggles when he’s around. The polite real estate agent from Oxford seems equally puzzled and fascinated by him. And awkward friendliness is just Martin’s default setting.

“How is Michael’s portrait coming along?” Gertrude asks one day, while they’re both having a coffee break at the back of the tent. 

Well, Gertrude has coffee, Gerry switched to herbal tea a long time ago. He’s lost count of all the times a clueless assistant has handed them the wrong drink. They don’t bother correcting them anymore: it’s easier to switch the cups themselves.

Gerry, currently sitting on a small foldable chair like an awkward stork, blinks at Gertrude’s remark. “What portrait?”

“The one you’re obviously working on, since you can’t stop staring at him.”

She’s smirking in her coffee, but Gerry doesn’t laugh. “You know, you don’t look like an evil person, Gertrude, but you are.”

“And you don’t look like someone who could have a crush on the incarnation of a haunted arcade, but here we both are,” Gertrude shoots back without hesitation.

Instead of replying, Gerry looks into his tea. On one thing Gertrude’s right: he doesn’t have crushes. Ever. It’s just… not his thing. He’s been into people once or twice before. Gender doesn’t matter: they need to grab his attention.

And it’s pointless to deny that, as scary as the thought may be, Michael definitely has his attention.

Smoking is the only bad habit Gerry hasn’t given up, but a man needs to have some kind of outlet. And calling it a habit is a bit of an overstatement, since he only turns to it as a last resort when his thoughts are too messy to be disentangled.

He can count on the fingers of one hand the times he’s had to scuttle away from the tent on a filming break to smoke a fag far from human and digital eyes. The production team has hammered on the fact that the only way “someone like him” could be on prime time was if his reputation was immaculate. They never used the word “sanitise”, but Gerry can read between the lines. Still, it’s a nice gig, he likes working with Gertrude and the rest of the team, and most of all he likes getting to know the contestants. 

So he smiles and nods and shoves his ugly bits under the carpet like crumbs. In this metaphor, the carpet is a stretch of riverbank just beside the bridge, a secluded spot with a nice view a mere five-minute walk from the tent. It’s quiet, except for the occasional goose. The grassy embankment and the trees provide a good cover and the babbling water is more soothing than any soundscape in his meditation app.

He doesn’t know how Michael finds him, but he almost jumps straight into the river when he hears the producer’s unmistakable voice asking: “Is this spot taken?”

After briefly considering whether to toss his cigarette — or himself, even — in the river, Gerry comes to his senses. He’s not doing anything wrong, and if Michael takes exception, he’ll just find another hideout. “Be my guest.”

Michael steps down the embankment until he reaches Gerry’s spot and he plunks down, with nothing of his usual effortless poise and blatantly disregarding the risk of getting grass stains on his slacks. Gerry feels like he’s watching the pre-production version of a movie, without all the special effects.

He doesn’t notice he’s staring until Michael turns towards him and leans in, carelessly invading his personal space. His eyes dart on the cigarette Gerry’s still holding, which is now for the most part a long, trembling cylinder of ash. “Can you spare one?”

Something inside Gerry relaxes. It’s unlikely that Michael’s going to tell on him if he’s an accomplice. He fishes his pack of cigarettes from the inside pocket of his coat (“It’s a spring coat,” he tells Gertrude every time she asks if he’s not afraid of heat strokes. It makes her laugh, so it’s worth it) and he holds it out.

Michael picks a cigarette with two long, sharp fingers that Gerry won’t spend any amount of time whatsoever thinking about, and puts it between his lips.

After a moment, Gerry remembers himself. “Oh, right, sorry.” His lighter is already in his hand and they’re so close that he barely has to lean in to light Michael’s cigarette. Then he lights another one for himself. Just to be sociable, he tells himself. Just to have something to do with his hands. “You won’t tell them, right?”

Looking at the water, Michael exhales slowly. “What, that you have a pink lighter? Guilty of breaking the aesthetic?”

That startles a laugh out of Gerry. He forgot. He uses it so rarely that he doesn’t mind it being an eyesore.

Surprisingly, Michael laughs along with him. When Gerry looks at him — and he doesn’t know if he just never noticed Michael’s crow’s feet or if laughing makes them more pronounced, or both, but he suddenly realises that this man is not as young as he thought — he winks. “Tell what to whom?”

Gerry exhales a cloud of smoke and tension. 

An easy silence falls and settles between them. When Michael breaks it, it doesn’t feel like he’s filling an awkward pause. “I’m not the only one who needs a break from all that, after all.”

Gerry chuckles quietly in agreement. He knows exactly what he means. “But we can’t let it show, can we.”

Michael rolls his eyes so hard that he almost topples on the grass behind him. “God forbid we look like humans. How do you cope with it?”

Gerry lifts his cigarette. “Occasionally. Usually with tea and mindfulness and sarcasm. I don’t really mind, most of the time. It’s not a hardship. I really care about the whole circus.” There’s a cynical part of him that’s side-eyeing him right now, and he tells it to get lost. The issue is much more complicated than that, true, but he’s not about to spill his guts to the first cute producer who bums a cigarette off him. “But yes, it can be exhausting. You don’t have to do it, though. The rest of the production team believes in a hands off approach, I gather.”

“That’s just Peter Lukas. My own approach is definitely hands on.”

His tone is innocent enough, and he doesn’t look back when Gerry does a double take at him. He can’t decide if Michael was threatening him or flirting with him.

He doesn’t know which possibility is more disturbing.

He has a partial answer a few days after. 

“I want to split them up.”

Time’s almost up and the contestants are frantically putting the last touches to their creations. Without noticing, Gerry keeps gravitating towards the back of the tent when he’s not flitting about between the baking stations like a fruit bat. He’s looking at his little passion project, the desk in the back where Jon is at frequent risk of chopping his own fingers off because he keeps looking at Martin doing literally anything, while the latter chats constantly, going on weird tangents and putting his foot in his mouth more often than not. 

It’s all coming together very nicely and Gerry is crestfallen when he understands what Michael’s saying. “Why would you split them up? They’re fantastic together. Twitter loves them. They have a couple name!”

“That’s exactly the reason.”

The way he says it, Gerry knows the decision is already made. He understands, of course. “You want to make them miserable to increase the drama,” he says, drily.

Michael looks at him. “That’s what the show is about.”

Gerry doesn’t think of himself as naive, not anymore. That part of him has been burned out a long time ago. But, despite all that, he’s not a cynic either. 

He knows how capitalism works, how profit comes before everything else, and how Michael’s entire job description represents this driving force. But he can’t forget how the show helped him navigate the death of his father and comforted him when his mother died, too. He’s comfortable enough with his own feelings — a fairly recent development, but a welcome one — to admit that he loves this show with a capital L, and he knows that love means compromise.

But not this time. Not if he can help it.

He keeps his tone studiously breezy. “It’s up to you, of course, but I think you should leave them together. People love to see them happy and flustered, not sad and pining.”

It’s a reasonable objection, he thinks, and it must count for something that it’s coming from him. That first cigarette on the riverbank has been followed by a few others, and he and Michael have started gravitating towards each other in what Gerry would call a tentative friendship, if he had more experience in that area. But he’s not sure what Michael thinks of him, if he thinks anything at all.

This time, the gamble doesn’t pay off. “That’s where you’re wrong.” Michael looks at him with a cutting smile. “But you are right on one count: it _is_ up to me.”

Gerry has never wanted a cigarette more than he does now, but he clings onto the last shreds of his self-restraint to keep himself from wandering to the embankment. He doesn’t want to be alone with Michael. He understands that strangling producers is frowned upon.

The thing that makes him truly mad is that Michael was right. Since Jon and Martin have been split, audience engagement has gone through the roof. And the poor sods have never looked more forlorn.

He’s standing to the side, quietly seething, when Jon has a breakdown over melted ice cream. He’s about to run to him, but he sees Gertrude dashing in the same direction and decides to leave the damage control to her.

He goes to fetch Martin instead. The guy darts over to Jon’s station while Gerry is still talking, and the only thing he can do is turn off the stove before the crème pât burns.

The cake is a thank you gift. Gerry’s not sure exactly what for, but it looks good, if a bit unwieldy.

After filming, before the contestants were driven back to the hotel, Jon handed him a bakery box with his trademark surly look and murmured: “Thank you, Gerard.”

He took the cake and told Jon that his friends call him Gerry. And now he’s just staring at it as it sits on the coffee table in his quaint country hotel room, both of them completely incongruous with the chintz and the lacy curtains. The tea he brewed as soon as he arrived is getting cold in its mug, and he doesn’t care.

When Gertrude knocks at the door, Gerry sighs. He’d thought she may want to check on him and it’s easier to let her come in, let her reprimand him with gruff affection and go away than it would be to resist her. “It’s open.”

The door creaks on its hinges. “Not very wise. Anyone could walk in.”

It’s not Gertrude. Blinking, Gerry looks away from the cake’s clumpy frosting just in time to see Michael close the door behind him. He’s in his shirtsleeves, without any of his trademark stroboscopic jackets, and the pink eyeliner is gone. His hair is down, as always, but it looks softer. He looks… 

_Different. Just different._ “Are you here to gloat?” His tone is much harsher than he intended and he’s about to apologise, but he doesn’t.

Michael doesn’t take offence. “Well, I see why you would have such a low opinion of me, so I’ll let you have this one. But actually no, that’s not why I’m here.” He makes his way to the small couch where Gerry is and sits down beside him, interlacing his long fingers on his knees. “That was a very good call,” he says quietly.

Gerry’s silence is not meant to be morose or sulky, but it’s eloquent nonetheless. He hopes Michael reads the room and goes away.

Instead, the man leans in until their shoulders touch. “Why do you care so much about them?”

They’re so close that Gerry has to lean back to look at him. Michael’s eyes are wide and inquisitive, and there’s no malice in his tone, just curiosity. 

He can’t. He just can’t. Gerry stands up. He can’t be this close to Michael now, or he’ll do something he’ll regret, even if he doesn’t know what. Michael sucks all the calm and the detachment out of him until all he’s left with is the anger he spent years trying to erase. He rubs at his eyes with the heels of his hands, pressing until he sees stars. “Why _don’t_ you?”

Michael’s laugh is cold and clear as ice. “But I do! I was the one who picked them. I have an eye for these things. Oh, what’s this?”

Gerry opens his eyes again just in time to see Michael dip a finger in the cake’s frosting and bring it to his mouth.

“Oi, that’s my cake!” Before he realises it, Gerry is on the couch again and he’s holding Michael’s thin wrist just above his cuff. His skin is so cold that it’s like holding bones.

“Oh, _that’s_ got a reaction out of you.” Michael doesn’t struggle, he doesn’t try to break away from Gerry’s grasp in any way. He just looks at him with interest, and after another second Gerry lets him go and sinks against the back of the couch.

People never see this side of him. He’s careful. They don’t get to look under the carpet, at the sad, ugly, sorry crumbs of him. Gerry doesn’t want to disgust anyone. He doesn’t even show them to Gertrude, even though she knows they’re there.

Instead of being annoyed or asking questions, Michael just waits. He gives him space and time to collect himself, and Gerry takes it with hesitant gratefulness. He covers his eyes with his hands again, inhaling and exhaling slowly through his nose as he counts to twenty.

He doesn’t care if Michael thinks he’s weird, and isn’t it freeing?

When he opens his eyes, blinking, the first thing he sees when he can focus again is that Michael’s still looking at him. More importantly, he’s doing so with the assessing, calculating look he reserves for the contestants. Gerry has never experienced it directly, and he’s stunned to see that it’s not even remotely menacing as he thought. 

He can’t put his fingers on why or how, but suddenly he knows that Michael _cares._

He’s yanked out of the reverie he’s fallen into by Michael’s next words, which are possibly the last he expected him to say. “I’ll be right back!” he chirps, and then he’s gone before Gerry can even begin to think about asking what on earth.

So, Michael will be right back.

It’s not like Gerry has expectations, but he can’t pretend he doesn’t see how it looks, two consenting adults making plans to see each other in a hotel room, at night, alone.

Should he tidy up? Brush his teeth? _Are you mad,_ he should lock the door and pretend nothing happened. Michael may not even come back after all. Does Gerry want something to happen? Does he want Michael to come back?

In the end, he doesn’t tidy up the room, brush his teeth or lock the door. When Micheal _does_ come back, he finds Gerry still seated on the small couch, and he laughs at his scowl. Gerry sees that there’s something in his hands, but it doesn’t understand what it is until Michael sits next to him once again ( _his spot,_ Gerry’s mind provides helpfully) and says: “Close your eyes.”

Gerry does, without questioning.

The coolness of the soaked cotton disk Michael presses gently on Gerry’s right eye is so welcome that he almost weeps. If his next exhale is a bit shaky, Michael doesn’t comment on it.

After a few seconds, when he’s reasonably sure he’ll have his voice under control, Gerry speaks. “You are not awful.” He can’t see Michael’s expression, because the man is currently swiping his ruined makeup away from his eyelid with a tenderness that makes Gerry sink his fingernails into his palms. “You act all… like that, but you’re. I don’t know.”

“That’s extremely eloquent,” Michael deadpans, switching to Gerry’s left eye with a new cotton disk.

“Why did you separate them?”

Michael sighs, but he’s smiling, Gerry knows it. When he speaks, his voice is uncharacteristically soft. Or maybe Gerry has never listened closely enough. “I just put a couple of metres between them. You've seen them. As long as they are alive in the same universe, they'll find each other.”

And just like that, Gerry’s _gon_ _e._ “Michael Shelley, and the offence is entirely intended: are you a romantic?”

He can’t keep from smiling at Michael’s surprised laugh. “I just have eyes. But it was fun watching you fret. You can open your eyes now.”

While Gerry blinks and tries to focus his sight again, Michael throws the dirty cotton pads on the coffee table, next to the long-forgotten cup of tea. He doesn’t get up to throw them away, and Gerry’s grateful for it. They look at each other for a bit, and it’s charged but somehow not awkward.

Gerry knows that Michael won’t insist — and he’s ready to ignore him if he does — but he says it anyway. He needs to. “It’s not just a gimmick for me, Michael. It’s not just about the ratings.”

Michael reaches out and takes one of his hands. “I know.” His fingers are light and cold like whipped cream and they hold Gerry’s with the same gentleness they’ve just used to clean his eyes.

Gerry doesn’t remember the last time someone held his hand. His laugh dies as soon as it reaches his lips. He’s not sure why he’s laughing.

Michael is already so close that Gerry can count his eyelashes. “We shouldn't,” he says, even as he kicks himself for saying it out loud.

“Ask me to stop, Gerry,” Michael murmurs, and Gerry's lips are warm with his breath.

“My name is Gerard.” He barely gets to finish that sentence before Michael kisses him, and Gerry idly wonders if Michael liked the taste of his name before kissing him back.

“How was he like, back then?” he asks Gertrude on Sunday, on their break.

Gertrude stirs her coffee even if she now takes it without sugar, doctor’s orders. “On stage? Young. Clumsy. Idealistic. A hopeful theatre kid. He’s not changed all that much, underneath all that… flash.”

She points vaguely where they both know Michael is hanging out with the remaining contestants. Gerry realises with mortification that he hasn’t specified who he was referring to, and Gertrude didn’t have to ask.

“It was my fault, in part,” she goes on. “I suggested he went into producing when it didn’t seem like things would pan out for him. Who knows what would have happened if he persevered.”

“I doubt you’re that important, Gertrude.”

She laughs, delighted. “He’s rubbing off on you! I knew you’d hit it off.”

“What? You told me I wouldn't like him. Verbatim.”

She looks at him sideways and sips her coffee knowingly. “And you never listen to anything I say.”

When the even-keeled, brilliant IT professional Sasha James wins, because of course she does, Michael waits until the cameras stop rolling to envelop her in a hug. “You were my favourite,” he tells her before letting her go.

When she’s whisked away for the final interview, Gerry rolls his eyes at him. “You told Jude she was your favourite when she was eliminated at the quarters.”

Michael shrugs. “They’re all my favourite.” He leans casually, draping an arm around Gerry's shoulders, one of the few people tall enough to do so and foolhardy enough to do so in public. “Let’s go steal some food, Gerard.”

Gerry doesn't know it yet, but he will be Michael’s Gerard for many, many years, and it won't feel distant when Michael says it, but like the closing of a circle. There will be so many more eyerolls, but also laughter, dancing without music in kitchens, and vows that feel like a prophecy fulfilled.

But for now there's this: Gerry’s proteges talking quietly far from the cameras, happier than the two losers of the final round have any right to be, and someone at his side who may or may not have his complete attention.

**Author's Note:**

> Come yell at me on [Tumblr!](https://mllekurtz.tumblr.com/)


End file.
